Modern heat exchangers are evolving in design and becoming more compact. Since the available space in the combustion chamber of modern heat exchangers is limited, improved gas burners providing optimal burning surfaces are needed.
Conventional burners do not allow for an optimal combustion in modern heat exchangers because the available space in the heat exchanger is not used optimally by the produced flames. This is inherent to the active burner surface of the gas burner, which is not adapted to the design of the heat exchanger.
The atmospheric burner described in EP 0594262 has a wall of gauze arranged around the gas/air mixing chamber. However, in order to stabilize the flame, a guiding wall is mounted at a very short distance (1 mm) from the gauze. The burner here, for example, has a cupola burner design, comprising a gas/air mixing chamber arranged above a circular or straight row of fuel injection nozzles, bounded on one side by a continuous guiding wall element and on the other side by a wall of heat-resistant gauze.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,443 describes a radiant burner for boilers. The burner has a hemispherical shape with a curved burner surface of wire cloth and a gas distributor of perforated sheet metal arranged under the burner surface. The dimensions of such a burner however are delimited by the radius of the hemisphere. Modern heat exchangers however require more flexibility in dimensions, so that the available space in the combustion chamber is used optimally by the produced flames.
Another type of burner is described in WO 04/092647 by applicant. Said burner comprises a burner membrane that flows uninterruptedly over from the base section through a transition section into a closing section. Certain shapes of burners are difficult to produce uninterruptedly, especially when made of stainless steel plates or sheet metal.
It would be desirable to have a burner which avoids the aforementioned disadvantages.